NMB metro slashes huge rezoning backlog

The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has slashed its massive rezoning backlog‚ filtering through hundreds of applications‚ some of which dated back to 2010.

The long wait for approvals cost the city at least one big investment in the last two years.

After closing the office to the public for three days at the beginning of last month‚ the metro’s human settlements department recently processed more than 300 rezoning applications and is left with about 80 to be completed by the end of this month.

Sorting through the backlog would go a long way toward speeding up new applications‚ the municipality said yesterday.

The department has struggled to process applications due to staff shortages‚ forcing many businesses to trade illegally while they waited.